Wimbledon may be looking green but the rest of Britain's lawns are already
turning brown this summer due to a combination of unusually dry weather and
an invasion of hungry bugs.

The coldest winter for 30 years caused pink and white patches to appear on lawns earlier in the year as fungus grew under the snow.

Now a lack of rainfall has made it impossible to generate green growth during the important months of May and June and the situation could get worse with hosepipe bans imposed in some areas.

Gardens are also suffering from chafer beetle larvae, which are flourishing in the warm weather and eating the roots of grass.

Trevor Bishop, Head of Water Resources at the Environment Agency, said it has been the driest start to the year for half a century in the North West and hosepipe bans will be imposed later this summer.

He said Wales has not seen such conditions since the 'great drought' of 1976 and rivers in the South West are also running low.

Overall the rainfall for England and Wales has been 34-35mm, half what it should be for May and June when gardeners are putting fertiliser on their lawns to make them grow.

"It is not a good year for lawns," said Mr Bishop. "But the good news is grass is designed to go brown in dry periods and it should recover quickly if the rain comes."

At the moment the Met Office is forecasting rain in the north over the next month but dry over much of the rest of the country, which is good news for farmers bringing in the hay but could be disastrous for gardeners.

Guy Barter of the Royal Horticultural Society said the average 'water soil deficit' is four inches, meaning it will take at least that much rain to fall for the grass to recover.

This level of dryness is usually not reached until July or August and he said gardeners are concerned there will not be the enough rainfall for lawns to recover over the next few months.

Although there are not expected to be hosepipe bans in any other area than the North West many households are now metered, making it more expensive to irrigate lawns.

The dry soil is particularly bad for new plants and grass, which has shallow roots, especially on gravel or sand. Famous gardens on light soils, like RHS Wisley and Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, London, are already suffering.

Mr Barter said grass has also been hit by disease because of the wet autumn and cold winter. Now there is a huge population of chafer grubs thriving in the warm weather that eat the grass roots.

He said lawns will be looking even worse later in the summer. "It is more than likely we will have normal summer rainfall this year and what happens is the lawns look fairly brown until September when the rain returns," he said.

Dr Geoff Dixon, Senior Research Fellow in Horticulture at the University of Strathclyde, said green lawns will become symbols of "social and moral decadence" because of climate change and population growth, as meters are introduced to ration water.

"If you want a pristine English lawn you will have to pay in future," he said.